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by zelda_zee



Series: Golden State [4]
Category: Lost
Genre: Alternate Universe, California, M/M, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 16:27:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2075007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zelda_zee/pseuds/zelda_zee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The journey's end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home

The Mendocino coast at Anchor Bay.  


The cottage  


The Mar Vista [website](http://www.marvistamendocino.com/).

* * *

_Mar Vista Cottages_ says the postcard. _Anchor Bay, California_. The picture is of a simple yellow bungalow, 1930’s vintage, with a small porch that looks out over a sloping hill to the blue sea beyond.

James turns the card over. _4/21-28_ is written in a messy scrawl on the back. And that’s all.

He checks the calendar. It’s the 15th. He turns the card over again and studies the picture, trying to divine what message might be hidden in it.

Pretty, he thinks. Serene. He must have passed through there, but he can’t remember the place.

Before he can stifle it, the thought arises of Jack sitting in the sun on the porch of that little yellow bungalow, staring out to sea. He sees Jack’s profile in his mind, as if he were there beside him, and then Jack turns and looks at him, that same look that he’d worn the last time James had seen him, his lips curving into a smile but his eyes dark and sad. It all washes over James then – Jack riding beside him, looking hot as hell in his leathers; his mouth, wide and wet on James’, tasting of wine; his hands, touching him sure and strong, like he'd known all along James was his.

There’s an ache that James carries inside him that hasn’t gone away with time, and it doesn't matter whether he labors until he's sore and bone-tired, or how much he drinks or how much weed he smokes or whose hands or mouth provide a quick, easy moment of release - he hasn’t managed to banish it completely, not in the seven months since he and Jack parted ways. He hates that feeling and he’s fought it and cursed it and done everything he could to cut it out of his heart and it hasn’t mattered a damn bit. He can’t shake it and he’s started to despair that he ever will.

*

When he’d last seen Jack they’d been in Yellowstone. James had pointed his bike toward home and so had Jack and that had taken them in opposite directions. He had to get back, James had explained. Winter was coming, he needed to get some work done on the house before it started raining. Had to repair that hole in the garage roof, re-point the chimney, fix a couple of leaks, replace those porch steps that had nearly rotted away.

They were standing beside their bikes looking out at the Lamar Valley. The trees were sporting red and orange tips to their leaves and there was a crispness in the air that foreshadowed the chill of winter. It was late afternoon and the sun slanted golden over golden meadows, the wind rippling the grass into undulating waves.

“You could come with me,” James said offhandedly, avoiding Jack’s eyes, but he knew Jack could read him well enough. It wasn’t a real offer, just something to say to make it not seem so bad. He was being a coward and he’d decided to cut and run and Jack knew it too and wasn’t going to stop him.

Jack just shook his head and leaned close to kiss him, a long, soft, lingering kiss that made James’ lips burn when he pulled back.

“You go,” Jack said gently. “It’s okay. Maybe it’s not time yet.”

And then Jack had gotten on his bike and headed south. James watched him until he was just a black speck in the distance, until he rode over a hill and disappeared from view.

They’d been together every day and every night for a month.

James made it home in three days, got his repairs done before winter hit. He started to go stir crazy in November, so he headed down to Florida, spent some time in the Keys. He met a tall, quiet guy with dark hair, dark eyes and tats and he tried not to think about why he stretched what should have been a hot and heavy weekend fling into a couple of weeks of something that started to come a bit too close to a relationship. In January he moved on, traveling through the south, then out to Texas and across the southwest, spent a wild weekend in Vegas where he won and then lost more money than he’d ever admit to. He was on the 15, halfway to LA, when he made a u-turn and headed east again.

 _Not time yet_ , he told himself, but it felt like his heart was a stone, heavy and cold.

 _He knows where to find me_ , James thought. _It’s up to him. Not gonna show up on his doorstep like some beggar looking for a handout._

*

Now it’s April and James is in the middle of repairing his barn. Not that he has any animals to put in it. It’s more a matter of principle. He doesn’t like to let things get run down.

If he leaves Sunday he’ll have five days. Plenty of time, if he rides hard. He’ll need to wrap up the barn project, stop the mail and the paper, change the oil in his bike, take out the garbage, pack. He puts the card on kitchen table, propped up against the salt shaker and stands back, staring at it, trying to ignore that familiar ache and the jittery feeling that's suddenly accompanying it.

He takes a deep breath. He’d better get busy.

He leaves early Sunday morning, riding northward to catch highway 80. The road calms his nerves as it always does, lessening the familiar sense of loneliness. There’s something about vast, empty spaces that soothes him. He feels less alone when he truly is, when he’s riding across plains or desert and doesn’t see a soul for miles.

It’s cold as he rides across the plains, but not raining, thank God. He doesn’t mind. Leather is a great insulator and he mostly doesn’t feel the chill, or at least he doesn’t let himself dwell on it. It heats up as he moves westward until the highway starts shimmering with water mirages as he crosses into Nevada. He stows the jacket, thinking how Jack would disapprove of him riding in only a sleeveless t-shirt, but how he’d catch him glancing over as they rode side by side and even though James wouldn’t be able to see his eyes behind his visor, he’d know what he was thinking.

At night he stays in cheap, anonymous motels, one exactly like the other. He lays in the dark and listens to the slow, heavy beat of his heart and tries to resist the urge to think about Jack. He doesn’t know why he fights it – habit, he guesses. It makes no sense, when he's crossing the entire country to see him – but it feels like giving in, like surrender, and that’s not a feeling he’s ever welcomed.

In the end he always loses that battle, hasn’t been able to shut Jack out since the morning he found that postcard in his mailbox, and especially not at night, when the ache changes from a cold feeling inside him to a hot one. He’s hard before he touches himself, full of need and desire and memory. He twists on the bed and clenches the rough motel sheets in his fist, biting back on the moan when he comes, his mind full of thoughts of Jack and the things they’ve done and the way Jack made him feel, like it was all too much, like he could never get enough.

He spends a warm night in Sacramento, leaves the interstate behind and takes a two-lane road north through Napa. He stops at a winery, feeling kind of silly as he swirls his glass and sips, holding the liquid on his tongue and inhaling through his mouth the way Jack showed him. The girl at the counter doesn’t notice his hesitation, but maybe that’s because she’s too busy staring at his shoulders and his hair and his eyes. He just can’t help himself, he winks at her and calls her “darlin’” and “sugar pop” and ends up getting a two-for-one deal on a couple of $50 bottles of Cab and when he tells her she’s the prettiest thing he’s seen since he left Tennessee – and he can say that now, since he hasn’t laid eyes on the doc yet – she throws in a bottle of Gewurztraminer for free.

Back on the road he passes Beamers, Porsches and even a few limos before he hits the hills, winding through vineyards bursting with the new growth of spring, shady stands of evergreens and sun-speckled oak groves. The smell of dust and grass and hot tarmac makes him think of home, but these hills are nothing like the Smokies. At the ridge-top he stops and walks out into a field where there’s a clear view and looks back down the valley he's just left behind and then turns westward to see more green-gold hills dotted with dark oak forests, sloping down to be lost in rolling, tumbling clouds of fog. It’s beautiful in the overblown, look-at-me, attention-hogging way California has with beauty, as if it’s not enough to be simply beautiful, no, it insists on being more drop-dead gorgeous than anywhere else, so that even if you start out determined not to get pulled in, in the end it forces you to succumb.

He gets back on his bike and heads down the hills, taking the turns too fast, but the sun is warm on his arms, and the wind is warm in his hair - because his helmet’s strapped down behind him now – it’s a two-lane, windy-ass, country road and he seriously doubts he’ll be running into law enforcement all the way out here.

The road takes him across cattle grates and through tidy dairy farms with cows that stand at the side of the road looking at him curiously. He gives them a little wave as he passes.

It’s funny how the ache in his chest has died down since he left the highway. He feels loose and easy now, and better than he has in a long time and he knows it’s not just the wine he drank back in Napa or the sun or the scenery. It’s that he’s only an hour or two from Jack and even though a part of him knows he’ll be keyed up and nervous when he gets closer, right now it all feels just right.

With the hurt eased he feels like he can breathe free again, and he does, breathes deep, and finally he can smell the fresh, salt tang of the sea in the air. It’s like it’s pulling him forward and suddenly he can’t fucking wait to get to the coast and find that place with the bungalows and have Jack right there with him.

He’s been such a fool, but it doesn’t matter now. God, he hopes it doesn’t matter. He hopes that it’s not too late.

The world goes white when he enters the fog, and he has to pull over and slip his jacket on again. It’s wet like a light rain, moisture from the sea and sky caught and held in billowy suspension. He slows down, and then slows down some more, because he can’t see a damned thing and it would be just his brand of irony to get run down by a cow or ride right over the edge of a cliff just a few miles from his destination and never even see it coming. Jack would just think he’d decided not to show, probably have a nice week in his little cabin without him, and then he shakes that off, because even he can’t fool himself about that. Jack probably half-expects him not to show, but that doesn’t mean he’d take it in stride if he didn’t.

It’s a surprise when he reaches the coast road. One minute he’s riding between mist-shrouded green, rolling pastures and the next there’s a stop sign looming and he’s 30 feet of pavement away from cliff’s edge. There’s a country store across the intersection with faded advertisements from the 1960’s painted on its wooden siding and neon beer signs in the windows.

The guy behind the counter is friendly, with long, scraggly hair and a beard. James buys a cup of coffee and asks the time and the guy points behind him to a clock on the wall that reads 4:25. Jack’s probably there already, James thinks, waiting, wondering if he’ll show.

When the cashier stands up to take his money James can’t stop staring at his chest, because he’s wearing a faded and frayed Driveshaft t-shirt. James hasn’t thought of Charlie in a while, but he suddenly misses him like hell. They lost so much to that island, it’s amazing that there’s anything left at all.

“How far to Anchor Bay?” he asks.

The guy says that it’s probably still an hour away, between the fog and the twisting, looping road. James decides that’s okay, because even though he’s had days to get used to it, even though he’s impatient to get there, he still needs the time to get his head around the idea that he’s going to see Jack again.

“Driveshaft fan, huh?” he asks, gesturing to the shirt.

“Got this in ’99,” the man says proudly. “They played the Fillmore. Awesome show.”

Outside, James walks to the end of the small parking area and blows on his hot coffee. He can hear the waves pounding below, feel the sense of space in front of him, but the fog is so thick he can’t see the ocean. It’s colder here than it was in the hills, and he pulls out his chaps and snaps them on. No sense in freezing his ass off for the next hour.

There aren’t many cars on the road. He guesses that the fog’s keeping everyone away. Once in a while a pair of headlights appear suddenly out of the mist, startling him by seeming so much nearer than they should be. But mostly he’s alone, and it feels strange and ghostly, like he’s entered some kind of netherworld. All he can hear is the roar of the Harley’s engine, and even that seems oddly muted. When he pulls to the side of the road and cuts the motor, there’s just silence all around. Can’t even hear the waves from here. He feels cut off from everything and everyone, enclosed in a world of white.

He almost misses the entrance. At the last minute he sees the words _Mar Vista_ appearing out of the fog and he swerves right, kicking up a spray of gravel in an arc behind him. He rolls to a stop in front of the office. There’s no one there, but he finds a piece of paper taped to the door listing who’s in which cabin and he stares, a sense of unreality washing over him as he reads _Shephard/Ford - #9_. He swallows hard and can’t resist reaching out and brushing his forefinger over the names. He pulls his hand back quickly, as if the words burn him, suddenly feeling stupid and sentimental. A quick glance around ascertains that nobody saw him and he hurries back to his bike and goes in search of #9.

All the cottages are yellow with white trim, tidy and modest, arrayed on a grassy hillside that, James assumes, will have a view of the sea once the fog lifts. He knows which one is #9 from the second he rounds the curve at the top of the drive, because there’s a red Ducati parked in front of it. As he draws nearer he sees Jack sitting on the stairs that lead to the front porch, wearing faded jeans and a leather jacket, watching with a dark, inscrutable expression as James rolls to a stop and dismounts the bike. Jack stands as he approaches and James finds himself searching his face, looking for he doesn’t know what, some clue as to what Jack might be thinking, what his next move might be or what James’ should be.

He looks good, James thinks, real good, tanned and buff but thinner than the last time he’d seen him. His hair’s a bit longer and his jaw is clean-shaven and he's just as tall and muscled and powerful as James remembers and when he unfolds himself to a standing position James’ heart thuds against his ribcage at the sight of him. James finds he’s breathing too fast and feeling a bit shaky, but he does his best to push that to the back of his mind and project a practiced air of careless self-confidence.

“Hey, Doc,” James gives him what he knows is a dazzling grin as he saunters over, bringing the dimples out in full force. He adds a hair flip just for the effect. “Expectin’ someone?”

Jack’s eyes take him in head to toe and back again, his expression appreciative, and James recalls that Jack always did like him in the chaps and that thought makes him flush with pleasure.

“I don’t know if you could say I was ‘expecting’ someone,” Jack says, meeting James’ eyes. “But I was hoping.” He smiles and takes a step forward. “I didn’t know if you’d come.”

James shrugs. “Guess I got nothin’ better to do.” He tries to make it sound like it doesn't matter, but his voice comes out too soft because Jack has reached forward and cradled the side of his face in his hand. James’ heart is suddenly racing and his skin feels hot despite the chill of the fog-cooled air.

“Well then, I’m lucky that your social calendar wasn’t more full,” murmurs Jack, his hand moving to the back of James’ neck to pull him forward, one halting step, and then two, until he is standing so close to Jack that he can feel his warmth adding to the heat on his skin.

“Uh-huh,” says James, not able to focus on the words, because Jack is leaning in slowly, closer and closer, and James just _yearns_ and there’s nothing he can think of other than how much he wants what is here before him, no other words forming in his mind, just _Jack_ and _want_ and _now_.

“I missed you,” Jack says, their mouths almost touching. He smells good, like the road, wind and sweat and the faint tang of gasoline.

“Yeah,” whispers James, his eyes falling half-closed.

“I didn’t know if you’d come.” Jack bypasses his lips and drops a feather-light kiss on his jaw line and James’ eyes finish closing and his head tilts back and now _this_ feels like surrender, like what he fought all the way across the country, but now Jack’s hand is buried in his hair at the back of his head and James’ fingers are clutching Jack's waist and Jack’s mouth is taking a long, slow trip down his neck, and he doesn’t fight it at all, he just sinks into Jack and hands himself over. “I didn’t know if you’d still want me,” Jack mouths against the skin of his neck and James shivers at just how very much he does still want him.

“Couldn’t stop,” he says and his voice is already low and scratchy and a little slurred, even though all Jack has done is kiss his neck. “Tried to. Tried really fuckin’ hard. Didn’t work worth a damn.”

James feels Jack’s lips curve into a smile. “Should I be sorry?” he asks. “Because I’m not. Not one little bit.” He pulls back so he can look James in the eye.

James traces his fingertips over Jack’s face – his brow, his nose, his cheekbones. He knows the gesture gives him away, but maybe it doesn’t matter so much. Seems like he’s going to end up giving himself away sooner or later anyway, so he might as well get it over with.

When he touches Jack’s mouth, Jack grabs his hand and pulls it away and before James has the chance to feel anything beyond a second’s panic at having done something wrong, Jack’s lips brush his, just the barest touch, then again, a gentle press. Jack’s body is aligned to his, bending him just slightly back. James can feel the long, hard muscles of his thighs and torso and suddenly he wants nothing more than to be naked so that he can _really_ feel it, without the barrier of denim and leather that separates them now.

James steps back and walks up the stairs and through the door, not checking to see if Jack will follow. He’s got the chaps on, which means Jack is staring at his ass, and James has no doubt that Jack will be right behind him. He doesn’t pause to take in the interior of the little cottage, just getting an impression of white-painted walls, a woodstove, a small kitchen. In the bedroom, more white - white curtains, white furniture, white sheets and comforter. He takes off his jacket and drapes it over a chair, then starts unfastening his chaps, only to stop when Jack comes up behind him and finishes the job. By the time he’s done, the brush of Jack’s hands on his legs and hips have left him half hard and when Jack stands and pulls him back so he’s leaning against him, slipping his hands under James’ t-shirt to let them roam over his stomach and chest before lifting his shirt off and dropping it to the floor, James shudders and feels his skin prickle into goose bumps. Jack’s pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses to his neck and his hands are on James' chest, fingers finding his nipples and at the first pinch James feels his cock go so hard that he sways on his feet at the sensation. He makes a little noise, something far too close to a whimper, and Jack pinches again and, oh, that’s just not fair, the bastard knows what that does to him, but he’s plucking and tugging and twisting and James is arched back and squirming and panting. He turns his head, seeking Jack’s lips and Jack kisses him, his mouth open and wet and James meets him with a groan, parts his lips and lets the play of their tongues against each other say all the things they haven’t said yet with words.

Jack slides a hand down his stomach and James can feel each finger, the firm pressure of his palm as it travels over his skin. Jack tugs the button of his jeans open and draws down the zipper and James moans and nudges his dick into Jack’s firm, warm grip.

“ _Jack_ ,” he says, low and urgent, as Jack’s hand encircles his cock, then again as Jack strokes him, touches him in that way that’s so distinctive, the way no one else has ever touched him before or since. Jack’s touch is sure and confident and just rough enough and it can bring James to the edge faster than he’d have thought possible, and hold him there indefinitely, until he’s mindless and begging and Jack decides to let him go. James has been aching for that touch, dreaming about it, and now he has it and it’s almost too much. He can’t really focus on it, on anything, he’s too hot, too full of lust and relief and nerves and fear.

He twists around and pushes Jack up against the wall, takes his face in his hands and kisses him, pours all that he’s feeling into his kiss, or tries to. He's overwhelmed and desperate and he thinks Jack can probably tell by the way he just opens to James and lets him take what he needs, holding him close with a hand on his ass, the other one buried in his hair. He kisses Jack deep and wild and hungry, hips working against him, the denim harsh as he rubs his cock against the tantalizing hardness of Jack’s erection, fucking Jack’s mouth with his tongue, until he’s so far gone he almost could come. He pulls back, gasping for air and before he can react Jack has dropped to his knees and his mouth is around the head of James’ dick, warm and wet and so fucking _beautiful_ , and James looks down as Jack looks up and if he’s ever seen anything hotter in his entire life than his cock in Jack’s mouth and Jack’s eyes, blown wide and sex-hazed looking up at him, he can’t begin to think what it is. James leans forward, bracing a hand on the wall and Jack takes him in deeper, working his way down James’ cock, working a sound out of James that’s somewhere between and whine and a growl.

“ _Jesus… God,_ ” James grits out when Jack starts bobbing his head. “I’m not – Jack – too close – I can’t –” He knows he won’t last but a minute, even if he closes his eyes and tries to count backwards from a hundred. Too many days – too many lonely nights – thinking about Jack and trying not to think about Jack, ensure that holding back is not an option. His eyes fly open when he feels a wet finger behind his balls, pressing against his hole and then slipping inside. He shudders as his whole body tightens, muscles tensing, and his hand lands on Jack’s head as he thrusts and it’s good, so good, it’s perfect, it’s heaven with a freakin’ angelic choir, it’s snow on Christmas and a home run in the bottom of the ninth and the first day of summer vacation, all rolled up into one. Jack’s finger rubs against his prostate and James explodes into his mouth, shaking so hard he’d have fallen but for his hand propping him up against the wall. He’s wracked with wave after wave of pleasure and all the while Jack continues to work him with mouth and hand until James is gasping and swaying and barely able to stand.

Jack gets to his feet then and walks him carefully backwards to the bed. James’ jeans are still around his knees and he’s got his boots on and Jack is fully dressed. The back of James’ legs hit the mattress, but instead of letting him go, Jack holds him tighter. James is weak and trembling and the rigid heat of Jack’s cock pressed to his hip only makes it worse.

“Okay?” Jack asks. He leans his forehead against James’. “Are we okay?”

James sighs. “Yeah. We’re gonna be. I think.” He can’t manage anything beyond that at the moment. If Jack wants some kind of guarantee, he just doesn’t have it.

Jack’s hand drops to his ass, caressing and squeezing, fingertips tracing up and down his cleft. “Want you,” he murmurs. He traces the curve with a single finger. “Want this.”

James swallows several possible retorts and says only, “It’s yours.”

 _I’m yours_ , he thinks, but he swallows that too.

Jack lets him go then and steps away to undress himself. James stares for a moment when Jack’s shirt comes off, because Jack has the most fucking gorgeous arms and shoulders that he’s ever seen and it’s been way too long since he’s laid eyes on them. When Jack’s hands go to his belt buckle James looks away, pulling off his own boots and pushing his jeans down and off before he looks back at him. By then Jack’s naked too, naked and hard, right there in front of him. James feels his stomach do a jittery little flip at having the very thing he’s tried so hard not to want suddenly _his_ , at least for now.

And then Jack is pushing him down, manhandling him onto the bed none too gently, pushing him back and spreading him wide and James feels a resurgence of arousal just at the way Jack is touching him like he can’t wait, like he needs James just as much as James needs him. He knows Jack wants him like this, on his back. Jack likes to be able to see his face, to see the sensations play out in James’ expression. It’s not James’ favorite position for that very reason and it’s not often that he's let Jack have his way about this. But the forceful way Jack is holding him down with one hand in the middle of his chest, his thighs tight against James’ holding his legs open as he reaches for the lube and condom let him know that this time it’s going to happen the way Jack wants it to happen and James finds that maybe just this once he’ll go along and give Jack what he wants and maybe he even _wants_ to give Jack what he wants. Maybe seven months of hiding and pretending and never having anyone look him in the eye and _know_ exactly what he’s feeling at that moment is enough for him. Maybe he’s ready to just let someone see. 

Jack’s hand on his chest is heavy, but the finger that circles his entrance is light and gentle. That’s the way it is with Jack – even when he’s consumed with need, he’s always careful, always considerate. He’ll fuck James hard but only when James demands it and even then he won’t unless he knows James is ready and open and can take it without pain. James is not that careful. He knows he’s hurt Jack before, but Jack doesn’t complain. Jack likes it, the way James knows he’d like it, if he could ever get Jack to let go to that point.

“Okay?” Jack whispers as he pushes two fingers inside. He’s leaning over James, breathing fast, his cock straining forward, dark and hard, the tip glistening, and when James reaches out and smears his fingertips over the wetness, rubbing it over the head, Jack makes a strangled noise, his hips hitching forward. “ _God_. Don’t. I can’t even – I haven’t done this in a long time.” He glances up at James as he squeezes more lube out onto his fingers. “Since I saw you, actually.” He chuckles breathlessly. “I’ll be lucky if I can last two minutes.”

James just gives him a little smile. He doesn’t know what to make of the fact that Jack hasn’t been with anyone since him. It’s pretty typical actually. Jack’s been chastely waiting for him and James has been fucking his way back and forth across the country. Just what you’d expect. He knows his cheeks have gone slightly pink from the heat he can feel in his face. He never even considered waiting for Jack and suddenly he feels more like Sawyer than he has in a long time and he really, really doesn’t want to feel like Sawyer right now, not at this moment.

It’s hard to make himself say it. It’s not the kind of thing he does, but it’s the way he is with Jack. That whole month they were together he didn’t lie once and he didn’t try to hide stuff either. It went against his nature in every possible way, but they both knew it was the only way it would work. There were lots of things they didn’t ask each other, lots of secrets that the other just let lie, but when a question was asked, there was always an answer and it was always the truth and maybe Jack hadn’t asked straight out, but James doesn't think this is one of the ones that he can just let lie.

No wonder he’d pointed his bike south and ridden away as fast as he could.

So he says it, even though he almost chokes trying to get the words out around the tightness in his throat.

“Jack – I didn’t wait for you. We didn’t talk about that and I – I didn’t.” Jack stops what he’s doing and pulls his fingers away, watching James’ face. James focuses his eyes on the wall beyond Jack’s shoulder. “There were other guys, since I saw you last… and a few girls.”

Jack shakes his head and for a moment James thinks that’s it, he’s blown it for good, but then Jack says, “I didn’t expect anything, James. I didn’t expect you to wait. I didn’t do it on purpose, it just happened that way.” James meets his eyes then and they look at each other for a long moment. “I guess we both tried to forget in our own way,” Jack says.

“Yeah,” James breathes. “We did.” It still doesn’t feel right, he still feels Sawyer there a little too close for comfort, but at least he knows he hasn’t ruined it all and since Jack is rolling on a condom and rapidly slicking himself up, he guesses he hasn’t really even put a dent in the action.

Jack’s hands are on his thighs, spreading him, pushing them back and he’s leaning forward, hot and heavy and _Jesus_ , he’s everywhere, around him, on top of him. James isn’t hard, but he’s ready, open and wanting and aching to be filled. Jack’s eyes are dark, boring into his and he’s got a little carnal smile on his lips that James never would have been able to imagine on Jack’s face if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes.

“You’re gonna remember now,” Jack says, his voice low and rich with promise and at the sound of it a shock of electricity snaps up James’ spine. “I’m gonna _make_ you remember.”

He pushes inside him in one long, smooth glide and James feels his breath leave him, feels his body weaken and grow hot, feels it burn until he gasps and the pain turns to something else – to deep, throbbing, molten pleasure spreading across his hips and down his legs and up into his chest, taking him over. He pulls his legs back as far as he can and Jack sinks in deeper and James scrabbles at the bedclothes and throws his head back and _groans_. Jack’s balls are resting against his ass and his cock is in so deep it’s working _whimpers_ up out of his throat and his heart is pounding and his skin’s sweating and, and, and _god_ it hasn’t felt like this, not once, not in all the time since Jack and there’s a funny feeling in his stomach that’s got nothing to do with the way Jack is breathing, _JamesJamesJames, god you feel – you feel – I missed you ohgod I missed you_ , and then, _Remember? D’you remember?_

“I remember,” James gasps, the words barely more than a whisper. “I remem – _ohhh_.” Jack moves then, pulling nearly all the way out and thrusting back in, neither fast nor slow, hard nor gentle, but sure and focused and strong. James' voice gets caught in a breathless, stuttering groan and after that, that’s all there is – groans that get louder and louder and James knows he should tone it down, but they’ve never held back when it comes to sex, and now he doesn’t even know if he could – and for someone who’s spent his entire life with sex being nothing but a long series of performance pieces, that’s saying a lot.

He doesn’t even notice when he gets hard again. It’s all a blur, sensation building upon sensation, intense and wild and right and so fucking good it’s about to drive him out of his mind. He’s got his legs wrapped around Jack, and his hands on his ass, pulling him in. Jack’s curled over him, hips pistoning faster and faster, his eyes focused on James’ face and it’s one of the hardest things James has ever done to just look back at him. The only thing that makes it bearable is how far gone he is himself, how his vision keeps sliding in and out of focus, so that even though his eyes are ostensibly on Jack, he’s not seeing much of anything too clearly.

When Jack’s breathing suddenly changes, hitching with a deep little vowel sound on every thrust, James know he’s almost there. He closes his eyes, concentrates on rocking with Jack’s rhythm, meeting his thrusts and tightening around him. He’s had a lifetime’s practice at making sex good, and just because this isn’t a con and he doesn’t need to, it doesn’t mean he’s forgotten how. Jack shifts his weight back, hands clutching James’ hips, fingers digging in and a thrill shoots through James to know that tomorrow he’ll be able to look down and see Jack’s passion painted in shadowed bruises on his skin. Jack fucks into him hard again and again until he comes with a shout, head thrown back, hips pumping helplessly, skin flushed and gleaming and James thinks he’s never seen anything so raw and beautiful in his life. He feels Jack’s cock pulse inside him and it makes him shiver with pleasure to contract around it and hold him tight, makes him break out in goose bumps when Jack thrusts one last time on a moan that’s so broken that it doesn’t even sound like him.

Jack moves away too soon, pulls out and James is empty and aching and hard and yet on some level he’s sated and content and he can’t quite figure out how that’s even possible. Jack shifts around some but James just lays there splayed out and fucked out, wondering if he’ll be able to sleep despite his hard-on, once Jack settles down that is, and what the fuck is he - _ohh_. James eyes fly open as Jack rolls a condom down his dick then cursorily squeezes a dollop of lube over it before crawling forward to straddle James’ hips.

“ _God_ ,” James says shakily as Jack comes up on his knees. “ _Jesus_.” His hands go to Jack’s hips, holding on, though whether he’s steadying Jack or himself he doesn’t know. “You don’t have to – Jesus, Jack, you don’t have to –” but he never gets the rest of it out, because Jack sinks down onto him and _Christ_. James can’t breath, can’t think, can’t do anything but lay there and gasp and pray that Jack plans on taking charge because he really doesn’t think he has the presence of mind or the coordination to drive this one. James knows it’s got to hurt because Jack doesn’t exactly take it slow, nowhere near as slow as Jack had taken it with him, but James just doesn’t have it in him to try to get Jack to take it easy, not once he feels that exquisite heat around his cock, gripping him like a velvet fist. James' hips rise up, and Jack bears down and they’re fucking again, he’s fucking Jack, Jack’s fucking himself on James' cock with sharp, rocking thrusts, fast and just verging on rough, moaning and grunting like he hasn’t just come and it’s too much, too much to have Jack like this, for Jack to give himself like this, without James even having to ask. He pushes himself up onto one hand, curls the other one behind Jack’s neck and pulls him in for a kiss, even though they’re both panting and gasping for air. It’s a messy, sloppy kiss, wet and biting, tongues licking frantically and they’re both moving too much to devote much attention to making it into much of anything other than mouth-fucking, but despite that, or maybe because of it, it’s somehow absolutely perfect, so perfect that James has to wrench his mouth away because _oh god_ , he’s about to –

He gasps, shuddering hard and crying out as he falls back onto the bed, twisting and writhing and arching and he can hear Jack saying _yes, yes_ and he wants to be able to see, but his head’s back and his eyes are shut and there’s so many colors swirling on the backs of his eyelids that he just gets lost in them. His cock is spasming in its tight sheath and he can feel Jack fucking through it and every time Jack moves it sends another wave through him. He has no idea what kind of noise he’s making because all he can hear is the pounding of his heart and the rushing of blood through his veins, but his throat feels raw and he thinks it’s possible that he might have screamed. He quiets, slowly relaxing onto the bed, the tension draining from his limbs and Jack stops moving, just sitting there on top of him and when he blinks his eyes open and looks up at him he’s got a funny little smile on his face and a look in his eye that James doesn’t know how to read.

“Jesus,” James rasps, reaching up to push the sweat-soaked hair out of his face. He clears his throat, but his voice still emerges gravelly and hoarse. “You should really warn a guy, Doc. Surprised the hell outta me there. Nearly gave me a heart attack.”

Jack gives him a knowing smirk. “You liked it.”

He runs his hands up Jack’s thighs, feeling the hair tickle his palms. “Yeah,” he sighs. “I liked it a _lot_.” Jack’s dick is partly hard and James briefly imagines Jack kneeling over him, fucking his mouth and decides that yeah, he wants that, but maybe in a while, once he’s had a little nap, because the result of too many sleepless nights combined with nerves and stress followed by coming twice in a row is that he’s feeling drowsy as hell.

Jack moves off of him, rolls the condom off, knots it and chucks it in the trash and then lays down beside him. “Tired?” he asks, rubbing slow circles over James’ belly, pausing to follow the trail of downy, blond hair from navel to groin and back again.

“Sorry. I ain’t been sleepin’ too good.” James winces internally at that. He’s been trying to work on his language and he knows that sentence is fucked up, but at the moment he’s too sleepy to figure out how. He looks at Jack through half-closed eyes, struggling against the heaviness of his lids.

“So sleep now. I’ll wake you up in a while,” Jack says, and then lapses into silence. The feeling of his hand moving on James’ stomach is almost hypnotic. James focuses on it and it’s the last thing he’s conscious of before he drifts off.

*

When he awakens, he’s momentarily disoriented. It’s dark and quiet and the room is cool, but the bed is warm and soft and there’s a down comforter and he feels better than he has in a long time, like he slept hard, for hours and hours. He stretches and wriggles around a bit because the sheets feel good against his bare skin and he needs to move, to tighten his muscles and get the blood flowing again. He’s sticky and probably smelly and he needs a shower, but he revels in that a bit too, enjoying the feeling of having been well-used and completely satisfied.

He gets up and pulls open the bedroom door, unable to keep from smiling at the scene that greets him. Jack is sitting in a rocker reading a book, his feet propped on a footstool, a pair of reading glasses perched on his nose. There’s a fire in the woodstove and from the kitchen something smells incredible. If he’d tried, James would have had a hard time imagining a cozier scene, though perhaps the addition of a dog and a Christmas tree could do it. Jack must have felt his eyes on him because he looks up at James over his glasses, his eyes moving downward, taking in his nakedness in a way that makes James’ skin tingle.

“Hey.”

“Hey. Since when do you wear glasses?”

“Since I got old,” Jack says. He smiles ruefully. “They’re just for reading.”

James smiles back at him, lifting an eyebrow. “Hyperopia? Serves you right, you smug bastard.”

“You’re still holding that against me?” Jack’s laughing now. “After all this time? You’ve gotta admit you deserved that much at least.”

James holds up his hands in surrender. “Yeah, okay. I’ll give you that.” It feels good to laugh about it. So much of their island baggage is made up of things James doesn’t think he’ll _ever_ be able to laugh at.

“You dressed for dinner?” Jack asks, his eyes raking James’ body again. “Cuz I cooked.”

“It smells great. I’ll just – uh,” James makes a vague motion toward the bathroom. “I’ll take a quick shower and then I’ll, uh.” He stops because Jack has put his glasses aside and gotten to his feet, a determined look on his face.

“Why don’t you hold off on that shower?” Jack says, crowding James back against the door jamb, a lascivious sparkle in his eyes. “I think I wanna make you a little dirtier first.”

James feels a spike of arousal shoot through him as Jack presses into him, rocking his hips forward. James’ cock twitches and starts to fill and Jack rubs his denim-clad thigh against it.

“I’m already pretty dirty,” James says, giving Jack a heated look.

“You are,” Jack murmurs. He takes James’ head in his hands and tilts it, exposing his neck, leaning in to kiss and lick and mouth over it. “Such a dirty boy,” he whispers, his breath hot against James’ skin. “I always knew you would be.”

James hisses at the scrape of Jack’s teeth on his neck and at his words. Jack, it turns out, has a surprising ease with sex talk. James never would have guessed at it before, but then he would have guessed so many things wrong about Jack before they’d spent that month together.

“Want me to show you just how dirty I can be?” James asks, and he’s breathless and smiling and so turned on that he’s not even sure that he can keep to his feet if Jack moves away so he holds him close, hands cupping his ass, pulling him in tight.

“God, yes,” Jack gasps and then he’s kissing him and they’re stumbling back toward the bed and the shower and dinner and the island are all forgotten.

They eat at midnight, sitting on the rug in front of the woodstove in their boxers. Jack had made leek and potato soup and it had been simmering all evening so that it’s thick and creamy, redolent of onions and thyme. There’s a crusty loaf of sourdough from a local bakery and James breaks out the Gewürztraminer he got in Napa, and as midnight picnics go, it’s not half bad.

They talk about the easy stuff – their bikes, their travels, James’ house. They catch up on news about the island people they’ve seen – Jack fills James in on what’s going on with Sun and Jin and Hurley and Sayid. James fills Jack in how Kate was the last time he saw her. She's the only person from the island James is in contact with, other than Jack.

They don’t talk about the hard stuff – about the island and what they do to try to forget about it, or to remember it in a way that doesn’t drive them mad. They don’t _really_ talk about Kate, about what happened so long ago between the three of them. They don’t talk about Juliet either. They don’t talk about the past at all, or the future and they definitely don’t talk about why they’re here now, tucked away in a tiny cottage on the California coast with a week full of unknowns stretching out ahead of them. They don’t talk about why Jack sent that postcard and why James dropped everything and rode all the way across the country on the strength of a couple of dates scribbled on the back of it and they don’t talk about why they fall so easily into bed with each other but have a list as long as James’ arm of things that they don’t talk about.

*

In the morning, James wakes up first, which is a strange state of affairs, because it was usually Jack shaking him awake when it was time to hit the road. There’s nowhere they need to go today, but James gets on his bike anyway and rides north ten miles along the coast road. In Point Arena he finds a coffee shop that makes him a double Americano so thick and rich it’s like drinking liquid smoke. He adds sugar and walks across the street to the wharf, sits and stares out at the sea. He’s not really thinking too hard, just feeling the sun and the wind and the way his muscles ache in all the right places when he realizes that he can't remember the last time he felt like this, like there’s not something missing from the center of his life.

He walks to the north end of town, which takes all of about five minutes. There’s a couple little stores, a gas station, the coffee shop, a diner and a pizza parlor, a yoga studio and a rather fancy looking restaurant. He’s just turning back when he sees a big old, run down Victorian sitting up above the street just a little farther on. It’s three stories tall, a dull, monochrome gray, paint peeling and weathered. The yard is nothing but weeds and there’s a rusty wrought iron fence surrounding it with a ‘For Sale’ sign affixed to it. When he pushes open the gate it squeaks on its hinges and it makes him cringe like fingernails on a chalkboard. Up close he finds that there’s actually the remnants of a garden – pathways, a few scraggly shrubs, an old stone fountain. He peers in the windows to see empty rooms with faded wallpaper and scuffed and stained hardwood floors. The kitchen is a disaster, everything broken and rusted and filthy. It’s clear no one has lived there for many years and that even before the house was abandoned no one had been taking care of it for a long time.

It tugs at something inside him, some instinct that makes him want to look after abandoned things. It’s the same feeling he had about his property in Tennessee before he bought it, the same urge that sends him out day after day to repair a barn that he has no use for. It’s why he still stops by the Iowa State Pen to see Kate every time he’s passing through the middle of the country.

He can imagine this house made whole again. It could be a beautiful and welcoming place and he has a sudden vision of himself living there, working on it, making it into a home.

But that’s not right. He can feel himself fighting it, but then he surrenders and lets the thought take hold, and he’s not alone there, it’s him and Jack in the big old monster of a house, fixing it up, painting bright colors over the gray and plastering the cracks in the walls and planting a garden. He’s not sure what it would be like to live here, in this town of maybe 500 people, tops, way out in the boonies where the nearest big city is a three hour drive down the coast. Well, he’d be fine with it, but Jack’s a city boy and James just doesn’t see how that would work and he’s crazy anyway to think such a thing. Just because they’re good at riding together and even better at fucking doesn’t mean he should start dreaming about white picket fences and happily ever afters.

He’s getting soft in his old age, no two ways about it.

He walks back to his bike, stopping to pick up one of those wimpyass half-caff, nonfat mochas that Jack likes. James doesn’t really see the point. He likes his coffee dark as midnight and strong enough to peel paint. It’s like so many things with Jack – they’re just different. For the whole time they were on the island those differences ruled everything about how they interacted. James isn’t sure how that changed or why, he just knows that sometime between the last time he saw Jack at the airport in LA and that day Jack sat down next to him in a biker bar in Salinas, something changed and the differences didn’t chafe anymore. They just were, a fact of life that turned out to be a whole helluva lot easier to live with than he would have imagined possible.

That afternoon, they take the steep, crooked trail that leads down the cliff to the beach. It’s a sunny day and not as windy as it usually is on the coast. They’ve bought bread and cheese and a roasted chicken and fruit at the little grocery store in town and James uncorks one of his Napa Cabs and he can’t help telling Jack about the girl at the winery and his two-for-one deal.

“You know,” says James, as he surveys the ocean, taking a sip of his wine. “This’s all _way_ too Cali for a boy from Tennessee.”

“I thought you liked California!” Jack exclaims.

James stares out to sea, watching the waves roll in. “Oh, I do,” he muses. “I like it just fine. It’s hard not to like it. I mean, how can you not like sunshine and easy livin’, right Doc? It’s just – it’s hard to trust it, you know? When things seem too good to be true, they usually are.”

“Sometimes things are just the way they seem,” Jack says. “Once in a while. On occasion.” James looks at him and he smiles. “Stranger things have happened.”

They spend the day lolling on the beach, drinking wine and dozing and laughing and smoking the excellent weed Jack had brought with him from LA. Jack is laying next to him, his body warm and solid against James’ side and it makes him wish that they were somewhere a little more private or that it was dark, like that night on the Sonoma coast, the first night, the night before he left Sawyer behind forever.

But maybe it isn’t so bad to be laying here in the sun, even if Jack does feel far too good curled up against him. At least this is California, where two guys can lay entwined on a beach in broad daylight and not have anyone give them more than a passing glance. In Tennessee they’d be taking their lives into their hands to lay like this. So even though a big part of him wants to feel Jack’s lips on his, and Jack’s bare skin beneath his hands, this is okay too.

James looks up into the deep, endless blue of the sky and it’s as if he’s looking down from far above. He sees the sea stretching to infinity and the green, rolling Mendocino hills and the narrow strip of rock and sand that winds between the two and there, very small, are Jack and him, laying on an old, frayed Army blanket, the detritus of their lunch strewn around them. He’s looking straight up, his hair spread out beneath him and Jack is sprawled comfortably beside him, one hand resting on James’ stomach, his head nestled on James’ shoulder. They’re so different – dark and light – yet fitted easily together, two interlocking pieces of a puzzle.

James’ blinks, gives himself a little shake. He knows it must be the weed that’s making him think like this, but either he doesn’t really care or he’s too stoned to keep his thoughts to himself, because the next thing he knows, he hears himself say, “So there’s this house up in Point Arena that I think we should buy,” and Jack’s squinting up at him with a fond, interested smile, not even looking like he thinks James has gone insane, and saying, “Really? So tell me about it.”


End file.
